Democrat Sara Gideon continues to lead four-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Susan Collins in the latest public polling released Tuesday by the Bangor Daily News.
The poll of 500 likely Maine voters finds Gideon, a Freeport resident and the outgoing speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, leading Collins by 5 percentage points. It is the fourth public poll since July 6 showing Gideon with a slight edge over the long-serving Republican, who in 2014 won re-election with nearly 70 percent of the vote.
The poll also finds that 2nd District U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Lewiston Democrat, leads his Republican challenger, former state Rep. Dale Crafts of Lisbon, by 9 points.
Respondents included 250 likely voters in each of the state’s congressional districts.
While respondents in the 2nd District seemed to favor Golden over the Republican challenger, they were near evenly split on their choice for president in 2020, with about half saying they would vote for President Trump and half saying they favor presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
The poll comes on the heels of a Quinnipiac University poll released on Aug. 6 that showed Gideon had a 4-point lead over Collins, and Biden leading Trump, 52 percent to 37 percent.
The BDN poll also found that 54 percent of voters approve of the job performance of Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat.
The poll was conducted from July 28 to Aug. 9 by phone and online and paid for by the newspaper. It was conducted by the Portland firm Digital Research/Critical Insights and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
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